The Sacramento Kings pulled off a stunning upset on Thursday by beating Oklahoma City 106-101, dropping the Thunder out of the NBA lead.
Tyreke Evans scored 22 points, while DeMarcus Cousins had 19 points and nine rebounds for Sacramento, who are in last place in the Pacific Division.
Sacramento scored their last nine points on free throws.
Russell Westbrook scored 33 points for Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City, who fell behind Chicago for the overall lead.
The Thunder squandered an eight-point lead in the fourth quarter, committing six of their 23 turnovers in the period.
LAKERS 88, CELTICS 87, OT
In Boston, Pau Gasol blocked Ray Allen’s putback attempt at the buzzer in overtime as Los Angeles held on to beat old rivals Boston.
Kobe Bryant had 27 points, while Gasol finished with 25 points and 14 rebounds for the Lakers, who had lost six of seven on the road going into the game.
Allen scored 22 points for the Celtics, who had won five in a row. However, Kevin Garnett was six-for-23 from the field and Paul Pierce was seven-for-18, including a clean-look jump shot at the end of overtime.
It rimmed out and Allen tried to push the rebound in, but Gasol got his fingertips on it and it floated away as the buzzer sounded.
ROCKETS 96, SUNS 89
In Phoenix, Arizona, Houston made it three straight wins by downing Phoenix.
Luis Scola scored 16 points and Patrick Patterson added 14 for the Rockets, who had a 57-13 edge in scoring from bench players.
Channing Frye scored a season-high 21 points for the Suns, whose own three-game streak was ended.
WARRIORS 109, NUGGETS 101
In Denver, Colorado, Stephen Curry scored a season-best 36 points as Golden State handed fading Denver their fifth straight loss.
The Nuggets are on their longest skid for five years, and have also lost five in a row at home.
Klay Thompson added 19 points for the Warriors.
Arron Afflalo led the Nuggets with 26 points.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier